The Clock You Hear? It’s Not Big Ben, Buddy

Last Chance Harvey

Even when they’re walking uneven shoulder to shoulder and hitting their professional marks note for note, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson don’t make a lot of sense as a screen couple. But there’s something irresistible about watching two people fall in love, even in contrived, sniffle- and sometimes gag-inducing films like “Last Chance Harvey,” which means that when he looks at her and she looks at him, there’s a good chance that they won’t be the only ones in the theater falling for all the hokey lines and shy glances.

It takes a while for those bashful looks to start darting around in this film, largely because the writer and director Joel Hopkins initially keeps his two main characters apart in order to milk their respective loneliness for maximum pathos. The story opens with Harvey Shine (Mr. Hoffman), a frustrated jazz pianist who writes jingles for a living, struggling to hold onto his gig while en route to his daughter’s wedding in London. By the time he has landed and breezed past an airline employee who is trying to snare deplaned passengers with a weary smile, a clipboard and a questionnaire, the movie has introduced the woman who will change his life: that conveniently situated clipboard wrangler, Kate (Ms. Thompson).

Harvey and Kate almost meet cute again when he exits a cab that she climbs into, a near-chance encounter that suggests that Mr. Hopkins wants to say something about fate or has watched the romantic comedy “Serendipity,” another story about passing ships. After much cutting between Harvey and Kate’s lonely parallel lives, the rumpled American divorcé and starchy British singleton finally get some face time at a restaurant, where a spark ignites amid several glasses of booze and teasing chatter. They consequently set off on a peripatetic flirtation that takes them along the Thames and to his daughter’s wedding reception, where Harvey delivers a speech about love and forgiveness so shameless, fraudulent and maddeningly effective that I wanted to hurl a shoe at his head.

Instead, seduced by its two wily leads, I reluctantly gave in to this imperfect movie, despite the cornball dialogue, pedestrian filmmaking, some wincing physical comedy and Mr. Hoffman’s habit of trying to win the audience over by simply staring at the camera with a hapless deadpan that says: Look at me, I’m still cute as a button, still cute as Benjamin in “The Graduate,” and I’m still kind of lost and still very much in need of your love. I have a habit of falling for Mr. Hoffman’s puppy dog look even if it’s now worn by a grizzled hound, though the actor, a well-practiced thief of scenes and entire movies, obviously takes very good care of himself, even when cast opposite a formidable opponent like Ms. Thompson.

Photo

Romance on the Thames: Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson as two lonely people who fall in love in Last Chance Harvey.Credit
Laurie Sparham/Overture Films

She may not be as brazen as Mr. Hoffman, but Ms. Thompson can certainly make off with a scene with the stealth of a Riviera jewel thief, as she does in the romantic comedy “Love Actually,” in which her character swallows her pride and stiffens her lip when she realizes that her beloved husband is a two-timing bum. She’s laden with a few similarly noble-masochist moments in “Last Chance Harvey,” which finds her trying to hold onto Kate’s pride even as the screenplay chips away at the character’s dignity. In one wincing sequence Kate ends up on an unlikely blind date with a younger man who quickly starts eyeballing a juicier prospect, a situation that seems strictly engineered for her maximum humiliation.

She may crinkle around the eyes now, but Ms. Thompson exudes such warmth and humor and basic human vitality that it’s hard to buy this Miss Lonely Hearts act. (She invests her character with far more life than does Mr. Hopkins.) But she gives it a go, putting on the mask of a woman who, quietly beaten down by too many disappointments, has assumed the somewhat glazed aspect of polite resignation. Every so often that face crumples and you see all of Kate’s thwarted desires and closely held hurts etched into every fissure. To watch this face fall apart against an onslaught of love, and to disintegrate along with it, may make you feel like a first-class sucker, but sometimes even cardboard valentines have sharp arrows.

Written and directed by Joel Hopkins; director of photography, John de Borman; edited by Robin Sales; production designer, Jon Henson; produced by Tim Perell and Nicola Usborne; released by Overture Films. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes.